446 POUCHED ANIMALS 



PHASOOLOGALES (POUCHED WEASELS). 



Only about the size of the common rat are the Phascolo- 

 gales, of which genus there are over a dozen weasel or 

 rat-like species in Australia and New Guinea. They are 

 arboreal and insectivorous, and climb trees in search of 

 their insect prey. In all probability they have larger 

 families at a birth than any other marsupial. The pouch is 

 not the usually well-defined bag, but consists of mere loose 

 folds of skin, in some cases with ten teats instead of four, 

 as in the Kangaroos and Phalangers. The best known is 

 the brush-tailed Phascologale (Phascologale penicillata), a 

 pretty little animal that will make its nest in barns and 

 similar buildings, instead of in the hollows of trunks of 

 trees or even amid the branches. 



Smaller still are the Pouched Mice. One of the smallest 

 species known is the Jerboa Pouched Mouse (Antechinomys 

 laniger). Its hind limbs being abnormally long, it is enabled 

 to make progression by leaps and bounds in the same 

 fashion as the jerboa, or the head of the marsupials, the 

 Kangaroo. 



BANDED ANT-EATER (Myrmecobius fasciatus). 

 Coloured Plate XXXII. Fig. 2. 



In some respects the Banded Ant-eater is one of the 

 most remarkable of the marsupials. In Southern and 

 Western Australia, to which it is limited, it is known as the 

 4 Squirrel,' although it lives mainly on the ground. It is a 

 true ant-eater, in the possession of a long extensile tongue. 

 Paradoxically it is a marsupial without a pouch. It has not 

 even the shallowest of skin folds. The young, sometimes 

 to the number of eight, attach themselves to the nipples 

 which lie hidden in the patch of extra long hair that clothes 

 the abdomen of the female. But if the Banded Ant-eater 

 lacks the great distinctive feature of the marsupials, it can 

 boast of more teeth than any other animal in the whole 

 order. It possesses fifty-two teeth, which number is only 

 exceeded by the armadillos and some of the Cetacea. 



